Thursday, November 10, 2011

Vegan Slab o' Bacon

I've seen shirts for sale online that read, "Bacon Makes Everything Better." And it does, so long as your talkin' vegan bacon. It's the smokiness that gives bacon it's magic, and luckily for vegans, we can have that taste with storebought vegan bacon, imitation bacon bits, Liquid Smoke, and even bacon salt (yes, it's vegan!).

I usually buy the Lightlife Smart Bacon. It's tasty, and it's vegan. But it also costs about $5 a package. This week, I went all super-saver-girl and made my own bacon! I used the Black Forest Bacon recipe in The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions:

Look at that peppery slab! I knew this was a must-make when I read the word "slab" in Celine and Joni's awesome guide to veganizing anything. All I could think of is that line from "Sweet Transvestite" in Rocky Horror that's all, "Come up to the lab, and see what's on the slab."

Anyway, this spicy, smoky bacon is awesome. It's a seitan-based dough that's coated in a maple-smoky-black pepper sauce. Then it's baked to perfection. Once baked, a slab will give you about 20 thin slices. I fried these up for breakfast as a side dish for my granola with hempmilk and dried strawberries:

After a week of eatin' off the slab, I still have a ton of bacon left. Looks like somebody's havin' BLTs soon!

This looks very good. I've only tried vegan bacon once from Yves Veggie, but it didn't taste like the real thing at all. Oh, I've also tried some tempeh bacon. It's very good, but it doesn't taste like bacon either. Maybe I'll just have to buy that book though. It's funny, I thought that book was just about making substitutions for vegans (egg replacers, tofu sour cream, etc.)... I didn't think about veganizing food like that. I'm interested!

That looks great! I have that book but haven't made too much from it yet.

I've never found a premade vegan bacon that I love (granted we don't have as many varieties here as you do there), but I absolutely love homemade vegan bacon recipes. Tempeh bacon is definitely my favourite.

Wow, that looks really good! I usually eat Morningstar "fakon" and I like the taste, but it's not particularly baconny. I've also sliced up tempeh and marinated it in Liquid Smoke and maple syrup and that's worked out really well.

I'm really tired of all the bacon stuff. Where did that come from? Like, all of a sudden, it was a thing. I'll reserve my comments here like I do all over facebook. :)